Here are the May highlights:
- The little league season ends – Luke’s team does well in the play off and misses going to the final game by 3 minutes (more details below)
- Kids help make breakfast for mom on Mother’s Day
- Lilah and her friends perform the Cha Cha Slide dance routine at the talent show
- Kids show off their school work during Open House
- Lilah finally beats her nemesis, Jillian, at the swim meet
- Lilah and Tory spend the night under the stars at their 5th grade camp out
- The family gets together at my dad’s house for a Memorial Day BBQ
Lilah and Luke Put in Solid Performances in their Sports
We had a great two weeks of playoff baseball. Little league has double-elimination baseball, which basically means it takes two losses to get knocked out of the playoffs. Luke’s team got off to a great start, winning their first two games — one was a brutal 14-1 affair where Luke drove in his first run (he drove in three runs total this game), and the other one was a real nail biter which our team pulled out 6-5. Then it was time to face our old foe, the undefeated Dodgers. Another pretty dramatic game. We got out to a fast start (2-0), but then our normally reliable ace gave up three runs in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-2. The Dodgers added another run to make it 4-2, but then we made our run in the fourth to tie the game 4-4. Actually, we had a bit of bad luck in that inning because we should have been up 5-4. We had a runner on second base that was called out by the umpire because he had stepped off the bag while the pitcher was pitching. Stepping off the bag is not allowed in little league, but it is really never called in our age group (usually you just get a warning). The irony is that our coach complained to the umpire about Dodger base runners leaving early so that put the umpire on alert so that when our runner stepped one foot off the base, he was called out (I learned later that there was a little more too it than that as the Dodger coach had quietly alerted the umpire about our base runner, which led to him being called out…talk about cut throat). Had our runner remained on the base, he would have been driven home and we would have been up 5-4. To make a long story short we lost that game 5-4, but it was a pretty dramatic end as we had the bases loaded with two outs before our last batter (the kid the umpire called out for stepping off the base) went down swinging. It would have been poetic justice for him to get a hit and win the game but it was not to be.
We lost another heart breaker after that to the Cubs 8-6. A game we essentially thought we had won 5-4 after we got all the Cub batters out in the top of the 5th. In our league you cannot start another inning after 6:30. When we got the last Cub batter out it was 6:23 so the Cubs hurried on to the field so that we could bring our batters up to bat in the bottom of the 5th. All we needed was for the inning to last 7 minutes, but the Cubs had their ace on the mound who was throwing strike after strike. Up to bat were the weakest hitters in our line up and they went down 1, 2, 3, each on three pitches. We looked at the time — it was 6:27 so we were forced to play one more inning. That was the inning that did us in as we had to bring in our third pitcher who walked a bunch of batters before giving up 4 runs to give the cubs an 8-5 lead. We had the last at bat and managed to get one more run in to finish 8-6. The kids were bummed — Luke threw his glove on the dirt at one point before the inning was over and afterwards some of the kids were in tears (as my friend reminded me “there’s no crying in baseball”) — but it was a fun season while it lasted. Luke was even considered for All Stars as he came on strong during the last third of the season, consistently driving in runs, making great plays behind the plate at catcher, including throwing a runner out who was trying to steal third (I didn’t manage to get that one on video as I was keeping score, but I did get a shot of him almost throwing someone out at second).
In march, I wrote about how Lilah missed beating the best girl on her swim team by 1 second in the 50 yard breast stroke, a moment I managed to capture on video. Well, this month she actually accomplished her goal of beating Jillian. The bummer was that I didn’t get to see it because of Luke’s baseball game against the Dodgers. What I do remember, however, is Lilah calling me up to tell me about her accomplishment. She said she was so excited about it that she almost started jumping up and down after she got out of the pool. I felt proud of her, not so much for doing it, but because I know the journey was 2 years in the making. When it takes you that long to reach your goal, it makes the achievement so much sweeter. Nice job Lilah!
Kids Show off their Projects at School Open House
It’s always interesting to attend school Open Houses as the kids get a chance to show you many of the projects they’ve worked on throughout the year. Luke managed to show us quite a few things despite his sister’s insisting that we leave Luke’s class so that we could go look at her stuff instead. One of the things that surprised me the most about Luke is how much he has improved his penmanship. I discovered this while perusing through his book of writings. It’s easy to see the improvement as the book is organized in chronological order, beginning with hyroglific-type scrawls early in the year that eventually morph into writing with symbols that I recognize as being part of our alphabet. Luke also showed me a PowerPoint on friendship, a Zinnia plant that had grown from seed, and a few of the crafts he had worked on to round out a pretty solid year.
Lilah showed us her density of liquids science experiment, her hand-illustrated stories, and a PowerPoint presentation on the state of Vermont. She also impressed us with a project called the “Significance of My Name” where she writes about how we came up with her name, what some of her nicknames are, and a few other choice facts about her.
Before the Open House, Lilah also participated in the school talent show where she performed a dance routine to the Cha Cha slide with her friends Tory and Lauren (although I hear and observed that she is now on the “outs” with Lauren). I made the observation at the 5th grade camp out when I noticed Lilah ignoring Lauren. I guess that is one they will have to work out on their own. The 5th grade camp out was an organized event the school sponsored after junior high orientation (yes, my baby will be in junior high next year, which means she will get a locker and school-provided netbook computer…wow). The camp out was held at the school and there were no tents so the kids pretty much slept in sleeping bags and blankets under a canopy of stars. I believe tents were not allowed because the school did not want any “shenanigans” going on in the tents. Before I left her at the event, I told Lilah she better not be kissing any boys — she, of course, said “eeeeeewwww, yuck,” which made daddy smile (I don’t need her growing up too soon). The next morning, Lilah told me the camp had been a lot of fun, they got to eat s’mores, sing camp fire songs and play musical chairs and other games before settling down to sleep around 10:00 PM. Nice…
So from what I can see the kids are continuing to learn and play, while also participating and enjoying some new experiences. And that’s really all you can ask for. More next month!